Fishing Without Nets (2014) User Reviews

A tough, gritty, depressing watch

[MadamWarden · 6/10 · 3 March 2020]

This is a difficult film. Difficult because it exposes the ugliness of humans. The poverty and depravity of life in Somalia driving ordinary people to piracy. There are no winners in this desperate story.

Unlike Captain Phillips, this movie gets under the skin of the pirates and their motivations. It is not pretty. There is no heroism. Just the sad rotten underbelly of "humanity".

A tough watch and in the end I am not convinced that there is a worthwhile message. Greed is bad? Don't be a pirate? Don't sail anywhere near pirates.

A long and tough watch but certainly very real.

Entertainment? I would not say so.

If you want to be depressed and get an insight into Somali piracy, then give it a go.

Interesting

[thmurphy-37414 · 7/10 · 17 November 2016]

I thought Fishing Without Nets was a very good movie. It was also very interesting when it comes to representing the Somalian citizens. I felt there was some kind of exaggeration for the depth of their situation. As the pirates turned on each other so easily, which I feel would not occur based on crew that is built and made from the people around the area. Many of the people that go on the mission as a pirate are the fishermen and the criminals. I still do not completely understand how the interactions are made, as someone just gets on the phone and after a while, the money is there. I just do not see very powerful countries talking to pirates from Somalia. Back to the main story line. The main character is a fisherman, and he has a wife and a child. He pays smugglers to get them out of the country, but he has to stay as he does not have enough money. He remains fishing, and eventually settles on becoming a pirate, as there are no fish in the sea any longer. The pirates find a boat, and there are only 2 French people on the boat, with no cargo. I do not quite remember the amount of money they were given, but eventually everything turns. The pirates turn on each other, and one of the French men are killed and the other is taken back to the shore. The main character is still on the boat when the plane drops the money. The ending is very questioning. As you have to figure out what happens next. I would recommend watching this movie.

Quality Movie

[jahouston-96994 · 8/10 · 17 November 2016]

Fishing without nets was one of my favorite movies we have watched this year. I had seen Captain Philips and it was cool to watch a film that gave a different perspective on Somalian Pirates. Also, after researching a little bit more about Somalian pirates I became very informed on the issue. People didn't actually see pirates as bad guys for awhile because they were viewed as protectors of the sea. I thought it was interesting to see that the main character really was a decent guy. He didn't want to go into piracy for pure greed, but he went into piracy because he had no other options. He loved his wife and had a kid who he also loved, all he was trying to do was get enough money for them. He would've continued to be a fisherman if he could've caught more fish. Unfortunately, the waters had been polluted by illegal fishermen.

I already did a research presentation on Somalian Pirates, but I wanted to look into hostage negotiation a little more. Basically, the pirates see negotiations as a way to make a ton of cash. They think it is just business and sometimes they do get big payouts. The average hijacking payout was around 4-5 million. The money used to get delivered by plane and dropped over with a parachute, as we saw in the movie. However, it is hard to find a pilot willing to take the risk. Also, cash has been delivered by tugboat before it just takes much longer to get the money out to the ship. Overtime the pirates learn which ships to target and realize the types of ship owners that are willing and able to pay. One pirate said in an interview that he just kept getting better and better with each hijacking.

Typical, pathetic and infuriating

[mzjcksn0424 · 1/10 · 30 July 2014]

Claiming this film to be "from the perspective of Somalians" is not only misleading, it is infuriating. The film donates a whole one liner to sum up the reasoning behind piracy in Somalia and portrays only one Somalian character as a human being with justified reasons to be acting so desperately, while all the others are portrayed as drug induced money hungry monsters. This is just another uninformed film maker trying to sell a one-sided, cruel American perspective. The line at the end of the film insinuating that the main character (representing Somalians) have brought this faith upon themselves is disgusting. This film is said to cover the "why" behind Somalian Piracy. Not only does this film not cover the "why", it shed even less light on the Somalianperspective than the movie Captain Philips. When the director was questioned about the real reasoning behind Somalian piracy (countries, including America, going in and over fishing and dumping nuclear waste in Somalia when they had no defense system in place) he responded with, "Well we were going to put that into the film, but it didn't make the final cuts and we didn't want to portray one side of the story...". Which was quite the contradiction as that was exactly what he did. He is attempting to sell the same "pirate story" that the media uses to further fuel the hatred and create an even bigger divide between America and impoverished countries. During the question and answer the guy facilitating it even made the comment of "good job portraying the pirates as "people" " making me sick to my stomach. These are real people that are in a desperate situation in a world where nobody will even hear them out, let alone help them. The director claims to have spent time in Somalia and even used Somalian's as actors in his film; I can not imagine the shame one must feel after having actually spent time in that area and then to come to a place where he could actually make a difference for those people and instead, continue to spread the lies. I would not recommend this film to anyone.